Ongoing thoughts on my martial studies and interests, which encompass almost everything.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Agena in 1972

Charles Murray just reshared some old photos he took while training in Agena in 1972. I'm sharing them here.

Here’s some March 1972 Agena Dojo pictures also.

* This is the Kata Listing Board in the dojo (notice the Marine Corps colors and it’s not in Japanese)

* Here’s the left hand wall of the dojo with makiwara and other stuff. It was always dim in the dojo even in the afternoon, so this rightly depicts how I always remember it looking.

* This is my good friend John Molinaro also at the Agena Dojo. John was a co-worker (security guard) with Harry Ackland. He hailed from Cleveland Ohio. Anyway his story was Harry had told him that if he wanted to learn Karate that he should study under Shimabuku Sensei in Okinawa. So John had just enough money to get to Okinawa. He flew there and got to the dojo penniless, unable to speak Japanese and without any prior Karate knowledge. Despite this Sensei took him in, got him work in the fields and he stayed in a little rat infested room and trained day and night at the dojo. He learned enough Okinawan/Japanese to converse well with Ciso and Shimabuku Sensei (which was a big help to me). Also Advincula Sensei has written about a body builder being there in the 1971 time frame. That was John. He was Mr Cleveland in 1965.

* This is a picture of Shimabuku Sensei that was in the stage area, just outside of the living part of the dojo.

* This is the Combination Listing Board in the dojo (notice the Marine Corps colors and it’s not in Japanese)

* This is a picture that I took for Sensei Lewis. He used to say whatever I did, don’t kick Shimabuku’s wall and so this was on the wall over there. I took the picture to send to him.

Memories we must thank Murray Sensei for preserving.

update 12/17/2015

Shared
on John Bartsusevics Face book site Karate Friends, the Agena dojo in 1961
prior to the roof.